The Misfortune of Draco Malfoy
by MachiavellianOrange
Summary: Post HBP: Draco Malfoy struggles to escape the prison he put himself in. Slash.
1. Prologue

Warnings: Half-Blood Prince Spoilers, future slash.

I do not own Harry Potter.

_The Misfortune of Draco Malfoy_

_By MachiavellianOrange_

_Avada Kedavra!_

The words echoed through my mind like a haunting caress, though in place of affection, waves of crazed panic and despair fluctuated throughout my soul in sharp pulses. My body was cold. My hands were numb.

A Dementor's kiss in a flash of green light. At least there was still a shadow of me, somewhere.

The two words that had passed through my mentor's lips did more than just murder the man with the crinkly beard. Something deep inside of me cried out in pain and shock, and in that instant, as I watched the still form of a human body hit the ground, lifeless, for the first time, I knew that my own life was over as well.

It was odd, Dumbledore dying. I thought I would feel good; great even. He was a hypocrite and I_ hated _him. But it was kind of like seeing Father Christmas killed before he could give you the toy broom you begged your mother for. It was hope extinguished. The problem was that I hadn't realized that Dumbledore was my hope at the time.

It's funny how the world works. One day you wake up, brush your teeth and go to class, and then next day you're crying in the toilets, being comforted by a dead mudblood you used to laugh at.

Now where was I? In a cell? _In a closet? _I could have been in my own bedroom for all I knew. My eyes were shut tight and I could see no indication that there was a light around me anywhere. I opened them and nothing changed; everything was still colorless. My neck hurt and my muscles were taut. I had been lying on a stone floor for hours, ever since I woke up to an unseen world.

I had hair in my mouth.

My stomach was hungry.

I didn't kill Dumbledore.

_I was going to die._


	2. Chapter I

Note: This chapter, and any future chapters, is subject to change.

--

_I had hair in my mouth._

_My stomach was hungry._

_I didn't kill Dumbledore._

I was going to die

--

I woke up to insistent prodding on my left foot.

I was terrified, and for one brief moment I thought that I was going to shit my heart out. Luckily, a familiar voice saved me from further soiling my standard black school robes. It was the voice of my mother. My blood-pump remained firmly in its place, unharmed but beating quickly.

"Draco, wake up!" her voice whispered from somewhere by my legs. I wished for the life of me that when I looked around I'd find myself in my own bed, or possibly a hospital cot; Merlin knows those things feel like a slab of rock. I jerked up as fast as I could and my head bumped painfully into a solid mass.

"Fuck! Mother? Where are you?" I gasped out as I lifted one of my sore arms. Rubbing my throbbing bruise seemed to have done nothing to the ache. I carefully opened my right eye, then my left. _Damn it!_ Definitely not the hospital.

"I'm sitting next to you—you bumped into a shelf, I think. Are you alright?" she replied. Blood was rushing to my head but I could hear her robes ruffling as she moved closer. The scent of lilac perfume was a stark contrast from the decaying smell of the room around me. Her bracelet (I had given it to her on Mother's Day when I was twelve) clinked as the chain collided with itself and I could tell that she was using her hand to try to find me in the darkness.

"Yes, I'm perfectly peachy! The day is warm and the weather is ideal for flying!" I snapped. I couldn't help it; I tend to revert to sarcasm in tense situations. On one of the days that I visited Crabbe, his mother started scolding me for exploding her authentic Van Go—

"Draco Malfoy!" she hissed, rudely interrupting my inner monologue, "Don't you dare talk to your mother like that! I carried you for nine months and this is how you act to repay me? If you think for one minute that—"

"Mum! I take it back! Jeez, I don't need a lecture while we're trapped in… where are we again?" _Please don't say Voldemort's lair, please don't…_

"Well, we're not in Voldemort's lair, if that's what you're thinking…" she paused. I waited for her to continue. She didn't. I could practically see her looking down at her nails. Okay, so maybe not see her with my _eyes_, but you know what I mean! By the way, my eyes are a nice sparkly grey color; it suits my pale complexion.

"So…" I said slowly. I felt my way with my hand until I found exactly where she sat and then I crawled over to her and she wrapped her arm around my shoulder. I was being extremely manly; comforting my mother and all. I will never admit how scared I was.

"We're actually at home," she replied curtly. _What!_ _You have got to be kidding me!_ I might have squeaked at this point, but I'm not sure. "Voldemort," she spat, "decided to pay me an unexpected visit. He thought it was… _charming_ to bring me the beaten body of my only son instead of a nice arrangement of flowers." She paused again and her calm broke. Her breathing became ragged as she cried as silently as she could and I could feel the moisture seeping through her eyes when she rested her head on mine. My cranium was stinging at that point, but Mum seemed to be having issues at that moment and if I had said anything she'd probably have snapped and bitten me or something. Then I heard her mutter into my hair, "His friends have taken over the Manor, Draco." I wasn't that surprised.

Now, I have always known that Father supported the Dark Lord but I was a bit suspicious about Mum; any time He sent word to the Manor that He'd be arriving Mum would have prior appointments that she felt the need to drag me to. I endured various charity banquets and visits to her friends' estates (I secretly call Mum's friends the Glitter Gang because her best friend, Ivory Boot, always has an obnoxious amount of blue sparkles on her eyelids) ever since the summer after my fourth year of Hogwarts, and therefore I had only ever met Him twice.

The first time I saw His monstrous face I shattered a glass over my own foot. Mum had tried to drag me to an orphanage to help during the holidays of my 5th year but I used a Weasley-made sweat and puked all over my duvet. She let me stay in my room but had a house-elf keep an eye on me for reasons she did not disclose. Thinking back on it now, I wish that she had told me why; I would have gladly stayed in bed. But I, the growing boy that I was, got hungry and stunned the elf with my wand. All I wanted was a glass of milk and a plate of cookies; I got a scar from the middle of my ankle to the pad of my foot instead.

After making a complete fool of myself by loosening the grip on my milk glass, the Dark Lord laughed a chilly laugh and flicked his wand to repair the shards. He (the bastard!) actually _took _the plate of cookies from_ me _and walked away. It was so undignified! I stood there in a growing puddle of my own blood with my gob hung open while he _stole_ my food! Hell, I didn't even think a beast like that could eat food; blood maybe, but definitely not human food.

Erg, that train of thought made my stomach growl and I became aware of my dark surroundings again. My mother had stopped crying and I then realized that she had been speaking to me frantically for over a minute.

"—and I did it for your own good but now we don't have anyone that can help us. If we get out of here the wards on the house will be activated and kick them all out because there would be no Malfoy's in the house--"

"Mum!" I shouted as quietly as I could, "Slow down! We… we can find a way out of here… er… we need a plan and we need one before someone comes to murder us. Just calm down and think!" I didn't add "Because I can't think myself, I'm so frightened out of my mind."

My mother is a very sharp woman; she was a Slytherin after all, and one of the top five percent of her class way back in the ice age when she actually attended school. (I am so very glad that my mother instructed my in Occlumency; Aunt Bella couldn't teach her way out of a cauldron.)

We both stayed silent and unmoving and tried to come up with anything that might save our lives. I wasn't being much help. Along with becoming increasingly sarcastic, I am in no way a Gryffindor, so I panicked. All I could think of was Dumbledore. He was dead, dead, dead. He would never breathe again, never give another beginning of the year speech, never coddle his precious students again… _I could have saved him, I could have let him go and he would have saved me too. I could have saved myself by killing him. If Potter would have killed me in the bathroom Mum wouldn't be in danger! If Severus… wait a second… SEVERUS!_

"Professor Snape killed Dumbledore because of the Unbreakable Vow, didn't he Mum, didn't he." It wasn't a question, but I could feel the air shifting on my cheek as she nodded. "What else did he agree to?" I whispered. I felt a tiny flare of hope awaken.

Mum suddenly went stiff and grabbed my shoulder. Footsteps.

Someone was coming.

--


	3. Chapter II

Notes: It has been months since Draco and Narcissa have been imprisoned. Issues will be touched as Draco thinks about them. You will find out what happened with the footsteps in the next chapter.

--

_Mum suddenly went stiff and grabbed my shoulder. Footsteps._

_Someone was coming._

--

I have never lived in poorer conditions in my entire life and that includes the time that Father grounded me and hid my Nimbus for a week.

I am certainly not being overdramatic; it is completely true.

My hair is matted and dirty, my clothing _rags_ smell like sewage, and if I ring the skin on my body I could fill a bucket with oil. My mum's probably much worse; I love her with all of my tiny little heart, but for the last couple months of our imprisonment she's been getting on my nerves with all of her complaining.

I don't_ really_ know how long we've been trapped, exactly, but it's long enough for my hair to go limp and greasy and my low amount of body fat to go even lower It's not like I was in good shape before I got thrown in there; I probably look like my father right now. On normal circumstances I wouldn't mind looking like Lucius Malfoy, but he's in Azkaban for fuck's sake! I do not want to look like I've been locked in a cell!

Bugger. I have been, haven't I? Still am, in fact.

I hate it when I sound like an idiot to myself in my own head.

Mum and I haven't seen light for ages, which was quite pathetic because we can move around the room as if we memorized exactly where we needed to go. I guess that we did, actually.

Groping blindly around the room revealed plenty; the cell (which is located in my own house, mind) is small and cramped and it has no doors or openings anywhere. It's like we're trapped in a cold, stone box with no way to open it; a cube, a _very_ uncomfortable, never-going-to-get-out cube.

There's _one_ dingy mattress on the floor in a corner and a self-cleaning toilet in another.

This toilet isn't your normal toilet, no Sir; it is—get this—a hole in the ground!

You'd think that a hole set in stone wouldn't be so amusing, but after utilizing it for the (maybe) tenth time, I noticed that there was no flushy-flush noise. I sacrificed some of the coins in my (still intact!) pocket and discovered that everything just vanishes once it passes in its entirety through a boundary point.

Every time I feel like crying, I fanaticize about relieving myself in the Hogwarts' vanishing cabinet and yelling, "Eat shit and die, bastards!" to the Death Eaters on the other side.

_Not that I would. _

Cry, that is; if I ever get out of this place I'll _definitely_ try the cabinet thing out. It's just too funny to resist.

Does it make me weird that I mentally italicize words in my own mind? Peh! _Why_ am I even talking to myself? Oh, that's right; I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO!

Great, now I'm starting to sound like Harry Potter. That kid has some _major_ problems.

_I'm gonna go stalk that pretty blond-haired kid that I hate because I have green eyes and a stupid scar!_

Get back on track, Draco. (Sometimes I'm too queer for my own good.)

As I was saying, I don't know who the hell decorated this place, but it certainly was _not_ a Malfoy. My father would surely have a conniption if he saw this place. Wait. Backup. Erase. He's a Death Eater, isn't he? I'm a Death Eater. We're all Death Eaters.

I could make a song about it …

Anyway, I clearly remember the first day that Mum and I were fed because I almost stepped on what I thought was dung. It turned out that the "dung" was actually a prisoner version of "food." We decided, my mother and I, that we had never been more disgusted to bear the Mark upon our arms; not that we liked it in the first place, but now it's even more revolting, despite the cool design.

The gloop, what I named the chunky/soupy matter, is absolutely gross; there's some kind of nutrient potion (I bet my eyeballs that it's Snape-made; he always adds cinnamon to everything that doesn't explode) mixed into the formula that is keeping Mum and I alive.

I can't even describe the taste, but I swear that I'll never lay a finger on it again for as long as I live, stating now, which probably won't be much longer since I'll starve to death eventually. I am _completely_ firm in this decision, and I won't cave in_ again_ like I did yesterday and the day before that and so on.

Yep. It's time for a fast, Mr. Malfoy. Show that gloop who's boss!

"Darling," my Mum said, "I think that we need to Talk."

If I could groan out loud without getting slapped I would; my mother can be quite violent at times. She's absolutely frustrating; I can still recall the conversations from the previous week, no matter how hard I try not to listen. The Talks always go along the lines of: "Draco, you should appreciate that you are still alive and relatively healthy blah blah blah."

_Riiight_, Mum. The cuisine here is exquisite. _Polly wanna crackah?_

"You know that your father and I love you, right?" she continued.

I'd roll my eyes if I could remember how to use them; I don't even know if they're actually open or not. I must check…

And the verdict is: _closed_.

"Are your eyes open, Mum?" I asked. Whatever she was saying stopped and then there was silence.

"There's no difference," she replied shortly. "Draco, are you feeling okay? Do you think you are getting sick?"

"No." Pause. "I'm feeling 'relatively healthy' at the moment," I said cheekily.

"Draco Malfoy!" she shrieked in the way only annoyed mothers can shriek, which is equally as annoying as the original annoyance that set off the string of annoyances.

Actually, I _am_ starting to get a head ache from thinking too much, but my mother wouldn't appreciate that fact that I lied to her. No matter, I just won't tell her; it's not like we have many potions on hand to drink at leisure.

"Yes, Mother?" I asked in my twee-yeaw-ol'-Dwaco voice.

I know that she can't resist my natural Malfoy Charm; not many can. The only time they ever fail me is when the Gryffindor boys in my year (Mudblood included) are around, but they don't deserve it anyway, the ingrates.

She made a 'hmm' kind of sound in the back of her throat. The last thing I heard her direct my way surprised me, to say the least.

"Try not to think out loud."

Woopsie.

--


End file.
